Bill Maher, by far the most liberal of the late night talk-show hosts, challenged Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to tell the truth.

Maher: "Let's be honest here. It looks like [Obama} told a lie. I think he did. Two questions: Is a lie justified if it is for something good? And two, if he hadn't told that lie, could ObamaCare have been passed? If he had come out and said, 'Yeah, some of you are going to lose your plan and you're gonna have to pay more,' do you think that law that squeaked through by that much [indicates tiny margin] would have passed?"

Schultz: "First, it was not a lie, so let me just knock that down."

Maher: "Let's be honest, some people can't [keep their plan]. And because of ObamaCare they are not able to keep it. To me that is a lie. Lie or no lie."

Schultz: "The supreme court upheld it and Obama was reelected on it. ... And we're still arguing over minutia."

Maher: "To a lot of Americans it's not minutia, and I think they are insulted when you say that. They think it is something important when the president does not square up with them. What about owning up to the plan that ObamaCare is a Robin Hood plan. It takes from the rich to make better the poor. I think he should embrace that."

(For the record, O'Care is redistributing wealth from mostly middle-class working people to subsidize insurance for those who have not made purchasing insurance a priority.)

Just saw my South African niece yesterday. She was married to my nephew for several yrs. Had to fight to get her green card, hire an immigration attorney and only recently gained citizenship. Interestingly she has dual citizenship (not recognized but the US). I asked her if she considers herself "African American". She said she is. But she doesn't use that label. She knew of another white African who used that on an application and literally got into big trouble for "falsifying" and trying to get a break for being a minority.

I think he should hire a lawyer and bring this up to the Supreme Court. I wonder if he could find one who would do it for the publicity and the political statement it would make.

If only she were Latino. Then she could claim "how dare anyone question my being here you bigot!".

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself...and of course the boogieman."

"I am neither left wing nor right wing. I am middle-of-the-bird."

"If either the right wing or the left wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles."

"Marijuana should be licensed and kept out of the hands of teenagers. It's too good for them."

When asked if he believed in the right to bear arms: "No, I believe in the right to arm bears."

On network censorship: "I feel proud to be living in a country where people are not afraid to laugh at themselves and where political satire is tolerated by the government, if not the television network."

On network censorship: "Censorship does not interfere with the constitutional rights of every American to sit alone in a dark room in the nude and cuss. There are realistic taboos, especially regarding political comments. Our leaders were not elected to be tittered at. For example, we're allowed to say Ronald Reagan is a lousy actor, but we're not allowed to say he's a lousy governor – which is ridiculous. We know he's a good actor. And we're not allowed to make fun of President Johnston, but if we praise him, who would believe it?"

On his political affiliation: "I belong to the Straight Talking American Government Party, or STAG Party for short."

On a break from pretending to believe they live in a country bristling with violent white racists, the Non-Fox Media have been trying to debunk stories about the “Knockout Game,” in which young black males approach random strangers and try to knock them out with one punch.

The left’s leading line of defense against the Knockout Game is to argue that young black males have always been violent, so, hey, this is nothing new.

You’re welcome, black America!

In Slate, Emma Roller wearily recounted other episodes of black-on-white violence in order to announce: “The ‘Knockout Game’ is a myth.”

Reminiscing about the flash mobs that shook many parts of the country a few years ago, Roller wrote: “I remember the summer of 2011, a story about a crowd of (black) teenagers at the Wisconsin State Fair randomly attacking fairgoers went viral as a sign of a burgeoning race war.”

So you see, stupid right-wingers, young black males have always been violent, so what’s the big deal about the Knockout Game?Your honor, my client’s not a killer; he’s a serial killer.

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes reached for a different example of monstrous black-on-white violence in order to dispute that the Knockout Game is anything new.

Looking like a translator for the deaf with all the air quotes he had to make for “supposed” “trend” and “Knockout Game,” Hayes compared it to what he called the fake trend of “wilding” after a mob of black youths violently attacked and raped a white woman jogging in New York’s Central Park in 1989. According to Hayes, “there never was such a thing” as wilding.

Whether the boys who were convicted of the crime did it or, as liberals now claim, a man already sentenced to life in prison did it, the Central Park jogger was brutally raped and nearly murdered by either one or several young black men. (They all did it — see Chapter 13 of my book “Demonic.”)

The following year, 1990, blacks committed 57 percent of all the violent crime against whites, while whites committed only 2 percent of the violent crime against blacks, according to the Department of Justice’s annual Victimization Report.

Thanks for the memories, Chris!

Oh, and contrary to Hayes’ proclamation, black men raping white women is something of a “trend” — at least according to FBI crime statistics. At least since 1997 (I got bored and stopped looking any farther back) blacks have raped several thousand white women every year, while white-on-black rapes have numbered between “0.0″ and “Sample based on 10 or fewer.” (See Chapter 11 of “Mugged.”)

In a particularly incomprehensible defense of black America in Mediaite, Tommy Christopher denounced the “sketchy” news reports of “the so-called ‘Knockout Game’” by citing the video of a group of black teenagers walking past teacher Jim Addlespurger, when one of the black teens steps from the group and knocks the teacher out cold, and then they all laugh about the assault as they continue walking.

But Christopher helpfully notes that a cop said this “was just a random act of violence.” So don’t worry about the Knockout Game, white people — this is mostly just ordinary, everyday black-on-white violence.

Liberals have to work so hard to avoid noticing the astronomical crime rate among young black males that their brains freeze.

Roller attributed public interest in a story about mobs of young black males attacking families at a state fair to white people’s need to validate their “fear” that black people are dangerous. (Milwaukeeans hardly even notice when mobs of whites surround their families at a state fair, punch them, kick them and smash their cars, while shouting racial slurs.)

But Roller implied that blacks engaging in violence is wildly unusual: “When a few YouTube videos are able to convince terrified white folks that young black people are dangerous, they may as well assume that all cats can play the keyboard.”

Is a disproportionate amount of keyboard playing in the country being done by cats?

According to the FBI, between 1976 and 2005, blacks, who are about 12 percent of the population, committed 53 percent of all felony murders and 56 percent of non-felony murders. The Centers for Disease Control recently reported that young black men are 14 times more likely to commit murder than young white men.

White liberals know this. Blacks certainly know it. Despite the hoo-ha over George Zimmerman shooting Trayvon Martin, most black people’s experience is not that white vigilantes are shooting them. For every one of those, there are 1,000 black teens killing other black people.

But if liberals took the first step toward sanity and admitted that young black men commit an awful lot of violent crime, they might have to ask why that is.

That’s a dangerous question for people who refuse to acknowledge the devastation of fatherless boys caused by liberal welfare policies. (See Chapter 6 of “Never Trust a Liberal Over 3″ to see how the British welfare system has created the same social disaster among hordes of white people.)

Unable to consider the obvious explanation — single-motherhood — liberals are left with nothing but genetic determinism.

So liberals defend young black males from the charge of playing a Knockout Game by telling us young black men are always violent.

Don’t worry, black America. White liberals have your back.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Mandela began as a terrorist and never turned his back on monsters like Arafat and Castro, whom he considered brothers in arms. When he was released from prison by deKlerk, he showed unexpected statesmanship, counseling reconciliation rather than revenge, no small achievement in a country in which the “liberation” movement (led by Mandela’s wife and party) placed oil filled inner tubes around the necks of former comrades and set them on fire.

But if a leader should be judged by his works, the country Mandela left behind is an indictment of his political career, not an achievement worthy of praise – let alone the unhinged adoration he is currently receiving across the political spectrum.

South Africa today is the murder capital of the world, a nation where a woman is raped every 30 seconds, often by AIDs carriers who go unpunished, and where whites are anything but the citizens of a democratic country which honors the principles of equality and freedom.

Liberated South Africa is one of those epic messes the Left created and promptly forgot about.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

I agree we need to look at the whole picture and that the whole picture includes some rather unsavory parts. That said:

a) The system he fought as a terrorist was nasty and brutal-- I've read that parts of the American Revolution were as well;b) He was in solitary confinement for 18 years (one visitor a year for 30 minutes, one letter every six months IIRC) and in prison for 27 years;c) He not only came out of this a sane man, but a better man-- and as that better man, unaided by a the American Creed as MLKing was, articulated a better path, a forgiving path where a vengeful path would have been so much easier-- and divorced his nasty wife Minnied) elected democratically, he stepped down after 5 years, apparently not noticeably richer than when he came into office.

I agree we need to look at the whole picture and that the whole picture includes some rather unsavory parts. That said:

a) The system he fought as a terrorist was nasty and brutal-- I've read that parts of the American Revolution were as well;b) He was in solitary confinement for 18 years (one visitor a year for 30 minutes, one letter every six months IIRC) and in prison for 27 years;c) He not only came out of this a sane man, but a better man-- and as that better man, unaided by a the American Creed as MLKing was, articulated a better path, a forgiving path where a vengeful path would have been so much easier-- and divorced his nasty wife Minnied) elected democratically, he stepped down after 5 years, apparently not noticeably richer than when he came into office.

He set his own cause back by favoring failed economic polices and aligning with the wrong side, Soviet Union, Arafat etc. Still, as well-noted above, he was one hell of an important historic figure.

It’s tough to deny the man was a communist when he was considerate enough to write us a how-to manual on being one.

Then again, context here is king. Who else was fighting to help Black South Africans get out of their ghettos? Mandela had to choose between two evils. He picked what he sincerely believed to be the lesser of two evils.

Mandela was faced with a vicious apartheid regime that eliminated all rights for blacks and gave them no hope for the future. This was a regime which used secret police, prisons and military force to crush all efforts at seeking freedom by blacks.

I agree we need to look at the whole picture and that the whole picture includes some rather unsavory parts. That said:

a) The system he fought as a terrorist was nasty and brutal-- I've read that parts of the American Revolution were as well;b) He was in solitary confinement for 18 years (one visitor a year for 30 minutes, one letter every six months IIRC) and in prison for 27 years;c) He not only came out of this a sane man, but a better man-- and as that better man, unaided by a the American Creed as MLKing was, articulated a better path, a forgiving path where a vengeful path would have been so much easier-- and divorced his nasty wife Minnied) elected democratically, he stepped down after 5 years, apparently not noticeably richer than when he came into office.

I wonder if the anti-Reagan protestors of the 1980s (or press) now understand that Reagan's determination and success in toppling the Soviet Union led directly to the fall of apartheid. Conversely, I wonder if or when Mandela understood that his choice in aligning with the worst oppressors was counter-productive in his cause to end oppression.

The New Yorker yesterday:

"Mandela’s release from prison and the collapse of apartheid were direct consequences of the demise of the Soviet Union; the South African regime could no longer rely upon its anticommunism as a counterbalance to its miserable human-rights record."

" wonder if the anti-Reagan protestors of the 1980s (or press) now understand that Reagan's determination and success in toppling the Soviet Union led directly to the fall of apartheid. Conversely, I wonder if or when Mandela understood that his choice in aligning with the worst oppressors was counter-productive in his cause to end oppression."

About as much as Obama understands that undermining our friends and accommodating our enemies will reverse this achievement of Reagan. Read Krauthammer's piece on the Ukraine being driven back to the Russian sphere of control. Can anyone imagine what that must be like to the Ukrainian people who only a generation ago were left mass slaughter at the hands of the Soviets?

OTOH I the New Yorker is hardly a conservative rag. Do they mention the name Reagan in the article? I will look.

The fall of the Soviet empire was certainly instrumental (if indirectly) in facilitating Mandela's release from prison. The New Yorker is correct about this, even though they don't give Reagan any credit for it. Another lesson lost entirely on the current generation of 20-somethings, who up until very recently held Obama responsible for virtually none of the current ills of this country, and generally view Reagan through a hard-leftist lens, to the extent they consider him at all. The left has successfully re-written history using the public schools and the media since Reagan left office.

I'll also concede that Mandela is a complex character. He was certainly willing to employ the most vile means to achieve his goals in the beginning, and he did partner with some of the worst oppressors in the world at the time. On the other hand, if one believes in forgiveness and redemption - and being a Christian, I do - it's arguable that he sincerely recognized the error of his ways and reformed himself before the end of his life. He was also one of the most non-narcissistic leaders I've seen in my lifetime. It's worth noting that Obama seems to be absolutely consumed by his ego and sense of self-importance. While no man can actually see into another's heart, it's my impression based upon actions, not words - that Mandela understood compassion and forgiveness - I'm not at all certain Obama does.

« Last Edit: December 08, 2013, 10:29:57 AM by objectivist1 »

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

The passing of Nelson Mandela has been attended with the usual global encomia we have come to expect from those political leaders who have become international celebrities. Sometimes these extravagant praises and out-sized mourning surpass any real achievement. It is hard to find any justification in Princess Diana’s life for the hyperbolic praise and hysteria that saturated her funeral rites. Many another “leader of his people” or “liberator” has after his death been bestowed with dubious qualities and achievements, while his crimes and flaws are airbrushed from the narrative. That’s why George Orwell famously counseled, “Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.”

Future historians may temper the current exalted judgment of Mandela, and there is much to remember as the world rushes to beatify him. His endorsement of communists and support for terrorists he made part of the struggle against apartheid should not be forgotten. Nor should be the victims of machete attacks and “necklacing,” the gruesome practice of putting around the victim’s neck a tire filled with gasoline and then igniting it, This form of lynching was a favorite of the African National Congress, of which Mandela was a member.

But after spending 27 years in prison, Mandela recognized on his release in 1990 the pragmatic reality that the dismantling of apartheid and the inclusion of the black majority in governing South Africa meant that the revolutionary justice of the sort that has ruined Zimbabwe, and the command economy beloved by Marxists, both were the road to just another form of injustice and ultimately failure. Yes, on his release he proclaimed that “we have no option but to continue” the armed struggle, but what he did was negotiate with South African president F.W. de Klerk to achieve a relatively orderly and peaceful transition to black political participation.

Upon becoming president in 1994, Mandela also avoided the actions that could have plunged South Africa into violent civil war, and the economic disintegration that would have followed the imposition of a bankrupt socialist ideology that has devastated so many African nations. He championed “truth and reconciliation” instead of payback, and economic growth rather than dirigiste snake oil, instead selling off some government-owned industries. He eschewed petty symbolic changes that would have divided black and white South Africans rather than unite them. Thus he refused demands to change the name of the national soccer team, considered by many blacks a token of apartheid, and instead supported the team as a symbol of national unity. His generous persona pacified anxious whites and earned his government international prestige.

As the National Review has pointed out, however, once he became president Mandela seemingly kept his affection for the communist tyrants and other leftist autocrats who had supported him not on principle, but as a Cold War stick with which to beat the free West. He did the global tyrant circuit, visiting Fidel Castro and other thugs, and giving them outrageous moral support that ignored their crimes and their much more brutal prisons than the one in which he had been imprisoned. As National Review writes, “He used his moral authority to buttress the prisoners’ jailers and torturers. He praised Qaddafi’s ‘commitment to the fight for peace and human rights in the world.’ (One of Mandela’s grandsons, incidentally, was named for Qaddafi.) Of Fidel Castro’s Cuba, he said, ‘There’s one thing where that country stands out head and shoulders above the rest. That is in its love for human rights and liberty.’” And he indulged the uncritical, crude anti-Americanism that is the rosary of the international left, saying of the United States, “If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.”

There is, however, more significance to Mandela’s life than the achievements noted by his encomiasts, or even his flaws. Like Gandhi before him, Mandela was a creation of the West. He was trained in the Western-modeled universities of Fort Hare, which was created for black Africans, and the University of Witwatersrand, which admitted some black students even under apartheid. He was influenced by anti-colonial and Marxist ideology, the origins of which lay not in tribal culture but in European civilization. He also had available the uniquely Western liberal-democratic ideals such as equality, human rights, non-violence, anti-racism, and democracy, precious little of which can be found elsewhere in Africa. His efforts against the nuclear-armed South African apartheid regime were ultimately successful because they were directed against a Western civilization that could be appealed to on the basis of those ideals and that would be reluctant to use massive violence. And this appeal created sympathetic supporters both in white South Africa and across the world, who made the cause of black South Africans their own and provided material and moral support.

Indeed, Mandela could not have succeeded against any other than a liberal-democratic Western country. His efforts would in the end have been as futile as Gandhi’s silly 1939 letter to Adolph Hitler, which begged for peace from the dictator who counseled England’s Lord Halifax, “Kill Gandhi, if that isn’t enough then kill the other leaders too, if that isn’t enough then two hundred more activists, and so on until the Indian people will give up the hope of independence.” What Mandela’s career demonstrates is the power of Western ideals which, despite the universal evils of human nature that have tarnished Western history, could transcend those brutal constants of history and effect change on the basis of principle rather than violence. From this perspective, Mandela represents the intellectual incoherence of anti-Western multiculturalism, which uses Western ideals like anti-colonialism and anti-racism to demonize the West, and ignores the unique principles of the West without which a Mandela or a Gandhi would have ended up forgotten failures.

Second, for all its brutality and injustice, in the scale of continuing global oppression and violence apartheid was not the monumental and unique evil into which Western liberal intellectuals and leftists carrying water for communist regimes made it. It’s curious that many black Africans illegally immigrated into an apartheid South Africa supposedly akin to Nazi Germany. Without that publicizing of apartheid in the West, Mandela’s efforts would have fallen on deaf ears. Just look at the relative indifference to the massive slaughters in Rwanda and the Congolese civil war, the oppression of Uighurs and Tibetans by the Chinese, the millions massacred in Sudan, or the mainstream media’s blackout of the on-going genocide of Christians in the Muslim Middle East. All that suffering, rape, torture, plunder, and murder do not gratify the endemic self-loathing of leftist Westerners that made apartheid a crime against humanity on a par with Nazism. Thus those other instances of violence are not elevated into a global cause demanding divestment, boycotts, and international shunning. No doubt many Westerners were sincerely moved by the injustice of racialist exclusion, but why haven’t we seen an equally intense reaction to the other, in many cases much worse, examples of oppression and violence?

Nelson Mandela’s achievements deserve recognition. We can even accept that the darker shadows of his portrait will be ignored. But we should acknowledge that his life is a testimony not just to his own character and deeds, but to the unique goods of Western civilization that made Mandela and his achievements possible.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Given that the entire planet seems to be of one voice in both mourning the loss of Nelson Mandela and celebrating his life, most will find it inconceivable that anyone would think to so much as suggest that Mandela was anything less than the saint that his admirers are working tirelessly to depict him as.

But truth is truth and Mandela was no saint.

Mandela was a proponent of “democratic socialism” who, along with the South African Communist Party, unleashed a torrent of violence against his political opponents that included the bombing of government sites. He was convicted of “sabotage” and attempting to overthrow the government—charges to which he openly confessed at his trial. And in spite of having been released from prison in 1990 after serving 27 years and eventually becoming South Africa’s first black president, he remained on the United States Terror Watch list until as recently as 2008. The late Margaret Thatcher characterized Mandela’s African National Congress as a “typical terrorist organization.”

Ilana Mercer is a writer and former resident of South Africa who knows all too well about Mandela and his legacy. One of her books, Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa, includes a chapter chock full of interesting, but inconvenient, facts regarding the man who is now being lauded as never before.

Mercer informs us that long before apartheid came crumbling down, the government of South Africa offered to release Mandela from jail as long as he promised to renounce violence. Mandela, though, “refused to do any such thing [.]” Mercer adds that Mandela’s “TV smile has won out over his political philosophy, founded as it is on energetic income redistribution in the neo-Marxist tradition, on ‘land reform’ in the same tradition, and on ethnic animosity toward the Afrikaner.”

In 1992, two years after Mandela was set free, he was videoed at an event surrounded by members of the South African Communist Party, his own African National Congress (ANC), and “the ANC’s terrorist arm, the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which Mandela led.” Courtesy of YouTube, all with eyes to see could now witness “Mandela’s fist…clenched in a black power salute” as the members of MK sang their anthem, a little song according to which they reaffirm their pledge to “‘kill them—kill the whites.’”

Mandela remained a socialist to the last, Mercer assures us, even though he cleverly—but transparently—“rebranded” it. Mandela’s was a racial socialism, a point established beyond doubt by the remarks he made in 1997. Mercer quotes Mandela insisting that “the future of humanity” cannot be “surrendered to the so-called free market, with government denied the right to intervene [.]” Mandela also declared the need for the “ownership and management” of the South African economy to reflect “the racial composition of our society” and criticized “the…capitalist system” in South Africa for elevating to “the highest pedestal the promotion of the material interests of the white minority.”

For the conceit of those Westerners who assume that Mandela’s thought is a justified response to the evils of apartheid, Mercer has just the treatment. She reminds us that Mandela and his ANC “had never concealed that they were as tight as thieves with communist and terrorist regimes—Castro, Gaddafi, Arafat, North Korea and Iran’s cankered Khameneis.” Mercer further reminds us that in addition to once cheering, “‘Long live Comrade Fidel Castro!’” Mandela referred to Gaddafi as “‘my brother leader” and Arafat as “‘a comrade in arms.’”

Moreover, though awarded by President George W. Bush in 2003 with the Medal of Freedom Award, Mercer observes that Mandela couldn’t resist issuing the harshest of indictments against America. “‘If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world,’” Mandela said, “’it is the United States of America.’” He added that “‘they,” meaning Americans, presumably, “don’t like human beings.’”

And what is Mandela’s legacy to his native South Africa? It is the purpose of Mercer’s book to show that it is nothing to write home about. “Since he [Mandela] came to power in 1994, approximately 300,000 people have been murdered.” “Bit by barbaric bit,” she writes, “South Africa is being dismantled by official racial socialism, obscene levels of crime—organized and disorganized—AIDS, corruption, and an accreting kleptocracy.”

Mercer’s book is a rarity inasmuch as it supplies us with a brutally frank account of the real South Africa that Nelson Mandela helped to bequeath to the world. While the rest of the world is busy singing hosannas to Mandela over the next few days, those of us who are interested in truth would be well served to visit it.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Next one for gays, one for illegals, one for Latinos, one for Indians, one for Asians.......

Hey what war on women? Why we voted for a museum for you gals.....Across from the street with all the brothels.....

******House to vote on museum for women

By Mike Lillis - 03/19/14 06:00 AM EDT

House Republicans plan to vote this year on legislation promoting construction of a National Women’s History Museum, Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) office told The Hill.

The move lends enormous momentum to the years-long push to establish a memorial to women’s history near the National Mall — a proposal that’s lingered in Congress for nearly two decades without ever reaching the president’s desk.

Congressional supporters from both parties have been working behind the scenes to rally backing and pressure leaders to stage a vote on the bill this year, even as Congress’s shift into campaign mode has left little appetite for most non-essential legislation ahead of November’s midterms. Cantor spokeswoman Megan Whittemore said the congressman supports the bill and intends to bring it to the floor.

Museum supporters wasted no time praising the announcement, with Rep. Carolyn Maloney — a New York Democrat who’s been working on the proposal since 1998 — saying she’s “thrilled” by Cantor’s move. With top House Democrats already behind the proposal, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.), Maloney predicted it will sail through the lower chamber.

“This is a huge boost to our efforts,” said Maloney, the bill’s lead sponsor. “Leadership from both parties in the House has now come out in favor of this bill, and I’m hopeful we can secure a large, bipartisan vote in favor of its passage.”

On Tuesday, the House Natural Resources Committee’s subpanel on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation will examine the bill.

The push to create a national women’s history museum comes as the role of women in politics has risen to historic heights, highlighted both by record numbers of women in Congress and the ascension of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a front-runner in the 2016 presidential race — if she chooses to run.

Maloney’s bill would establish a commission charged with examining the best way to bring a women’s history museum “on or near” the National Mall. The eight-member panel, appointed by bipartisan leaders in both the House and Senate, would have a year to report recommendations to Congress and the White House for building and maintaining the project.

A Senate companion bill, introduced last year by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), has 20 co-sponsors, including 17 of the Senate’s 20 female lawmakers.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), the House bill’s lead GOP sponsor, said she’s confident the bill will win approval in both chambers this year.

“I do think that it’s the year that it can move on the House floor and the Senate floor,” she said Tuesday by phone. “We’re hopeful that as we move to the spring that we’ll see action on this and make a women’s history museum a reality for the country.”

Using past museum commissions as a guide, the bill’s sponsors estimate the cost of the proposal to be between $1 million and $3 million. They are quick to emphasize that both the commission’s costs and those associated with constructing and maintaining the museum would be funded entirely by private contributions. Actress Meryl Streep has already donated $1 million, Maloney said.

“We know that money’s tight, and that’s why private monies will pay for this memorial, not taxpayer dollars,” Maloney said.

Some Democrats suggested GOP leaders are simply playing election-year politics with the museum bill. One leadership aide said the Republicans would embrace the proposal as a political effort to defuse the Democratic argument that their policy agenda is harmful to women.

“They’re trying to reach out to people other than white males,” the aide said. “They may try to latch onto it to show that they’re not complete Neanderthals.”

It’s unclear what level of opposition the proposal will face on Capitol Hill. The absence of offsets takes away a potential complaint from fiscal hawks, and the GOP’s aggressive effort to be more sensitive to female and minority constituents will likely discourage any significant wave of dissent, even from the most conservative ranks.

Still, Blackburn acknowledged there might be some push-back from those wondering why women should have their own spot on the Mall.

“You’re always going to hear some [say], ‘Well, if we have that, [why don’t] we have a men’s history museum?’ ” she said. “But I think what we have to do is realize that what has been highly recognized in the country is the contribution of men.

“And in part, as they were the elected leaders … that is appropriate,” she added. “But also, there are women who worked alongside them and women who have led great movements in this country, and that should be recognized.”

These eunuch Republicans just can't seem to stand any criticism from Democrats or the media. They consistently accept the premises of the Democrats' accusations (such as the Republicans are conducting a "war on women") no matter how ridiculous they are, and then try to prove they're not what they're being accused of by boneheaded moves like this. How pathetic. I MUST AGREE WITH RUSH LIMBAUGH IN ASKING "WHY THE HELL IS GOV. SCOTT WALKER'S INCREDIBLE SUCCESS IN WISCONSIN NOT BEING TRUMPETED FROM THE MOUNTAINTOPS BY THE REPUBLICANS AND ADOPTED AS A WAY FORWARD FOR THE COUNTRY???" For God's sake - PAUL RYAN represents Wisconsin! Where the hell has he been on this issue? Is he afraid of giving his own Governor credit? The Republican leadership appears to be hell-bent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Harry Reid is the Majority Leader of the Senate of the United States. He occupies a position of influence at the pinnacle of the American system of government. Of late, the senator from Nevada has become a one-man, First Amendment wrecking crew.

If like Charles and David Koch, your political opinions offend Harry Reid's ears, or if like the Washington Redskins, your taste in sports-team logos offends his eyes, Sen. Reid will use his office to try to shut you up or make you disappear.

For those who think the Kochs or the Redskins' logo are unsympathetic victims, think again. The enforcers Sen. Reid is leading will get around to you eventually. In some places, they already have.i Sen. Reid, with Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, outputted a letter signed by a total of 50 Democratic senators and addressed to National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell. It condemns Washington D.C.'s NFL team and its owner Daniel Snyder for not abandoning the team's logo, the Redskins. The letter calls the Washington Redskins a "racial slur." Sen. Reid has accused the Washington Redskins of a "tradition of racism." The letter says "Redskins" is the equivalent of the racist remarks of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling.

Continuing in this vein of senatorial logic, the 50 members of the world's greatest deliberative body more or less order Mr. Goodell ("Now is the time for the NFL to act") to use his power to coerce a name change for Washington's football team. Should Commissioner Goodell buckle beneath Harry Reid's gang tackle, make no mistake: That same Senate letter would go straight to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, ordering him, under the Sterling Precedent, to kill the Cleveland Indians' logo, Chief Wahoo. Were Mr. Selig to do so, there of course would be riots in the streets of Cleveland, whose single most beloved citizen is . . . Chief Wahoo.

In recent weeks, people across the political spectrum professed to be aghast when a small coterie of "offended" students shut down commencement speeches by conservatives, centrists and liberals.

At Smith College, they didn't want to hear IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde. At Haverford College, they'd only let former Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau speak if he signed a letter of apology and guilt for his handling of the Occupy Cal sit-ins in 2011. How, the world of astonished adults wondered, have these students come to believe they could shut people up on any aggrieved whim?

They got it from the Majority Leader of the United States Senate and 49 senators. They got it from the many adults who think a little restriction on some speech is OK, and then cry shock when the mob goes too far. That Senate letter isn't just about the Washington Redskins. It's part of a broader, active effort to define and limit what people can say—not just in politics or sports, but anywhere anyone tries to open his or her mouth.

The New York Times, the New Republic and others have carried articles on the suppressive phenomenon known as "trigger warnings" for college courses. The idea is that professors should post warnings about course content that may "trigger" traumatic memories or thoughts in some students for a list of reasons related to feminist concerns, sex and multiple violations of social justice. Look for a letter soon from Harry Reid to Turner Classic Movies demanding trigger warnings on John Ford westerns. Last fall at a private party at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., two athletes—one of them white, the other black—were overheard trading racial jokes during a game of beer pong. Someone reported them to the administration. Lewis & Clark convicted the students of hate speech and ordered them to undergo "Bias Reduction and Bystander Intervention Training." To their credit, 40 Lewis & Clark professors signed a letter of concern about the school's notion of due process. American academics must be worrying they may have to go underground to teach freely. We could soon see samizdat doctoral theses.

In another corner of Harry Reid's Senate sits an attempt to expand federal surveillance of "hate speech." Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts just introduced a bill called the Hate Crimes Reporting Act. Its purpose, said Sen. Markey, is "to ensure the Internet, television and radio are not encouraging hate crimes and hate speech that is not outside the protections of the First Amendment." The potential causes of offense are "gender, race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation." In other words, anything.Sophisticates will recognize that the bill should be better known as the Shut Up Fox News and Rush Limbaugh Act (newspapers are protected from any such regulation). But on their current, unrestrained course, federally deputized talk censors would get around to cleansing and sterilizing MSNBC, too.

We are moving way past the amusements of political correctness. A creeping, even creepy, effort is under way to shut people up for a broad swath of offenses. The distance is shortening between the First Amendment's formal protections and a "Fahrenheit 451" regime for torching speech in America. The time for adult pushback is overdue.

This is crazy. If you say something that doesn't fit the Democrat Party theme and hence their huge plans to milk this up for 2016 you are forced into public humiliation:

Oct 9, 11:32 PM EDT

Microsoft CEO apologizes for comments on women

By TALI ARBEL AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella apologized Thursday night and said he was wrong for saying that women don't need to ask for a raise and should just trust the system to pay them well.

Nadella was blasted on Twitter and in blog posts for his comments, which were made earlier Thursday at an event for women in computing. Tech companies hire many more men than women. And beyond the tech industry, women are typically paid less than men.

He had been asked to give his advice to women who are uncomfortable requesting a raise. His response: "It's not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along." Not asking for raise, he added, is "good karma" that would help a boss realize that the employee could be trusted and should have more responsibility.

But his comments caused an uproar online, and Microsoft posted a memo from him on its website. In it, Nadella said he answered the question "completely wrong" and that he thinks "men and women should get equal pay for equal work. And when it comes to career advice on getting a raise when you think it's deserved, Maria's advice was the right advice. If you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask."

His interviewer at the event, Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College and a Microsoft director, had told him she disagreed, which drew cheers from the audience. She suggested women do their homework on salary information and first practice asking with people they trust.

Still, his comments at the event, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, underscored why many see technology companies as workplaces that are difficult to navigate or even unfriendly for women and minorities. Tech companies, particularly the engineering ranks, are overwhelmingly male, white and Asian.

Criticized for their lack of diversity, major companies say they are trying to address the problem with programs such as employee training sessions and by participating in initiatives meant to introduce girls to coding.

Twenty-nine percent of Microsoft's employees are women, according to figures the Redmond, Washington-based company released earlier this month. Its technical and engineering staff and its management are just 17 percent female.

That's roughly comparable to diversity data released by other big tech companies this year.

"Without a doubt I wholeheartedly support programs at Microsoft and in the industry that bring more women into technology and close the pay gap," Nadella wrote in his memo to employees.

Readers know of the phenomenon at college campuses regarding charges of “microaggressions” and “triggers.” It’s been going on for a while and is part of a growing censorship movement in which professors, administrators and others are accused of racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, gender bias and ethnocentric thinking, among other things. Connected is the rejection or harassment of commencement and other campus speakers who are not politically correct. I hate that phrase, but it just won’t stop being current.

Kirsten Powers goes into much of this in her book, “The Silencing.” Anyway, quite a bunch of little Marats and Robespierres we’re bringing up.

But I was taken aback by a piece a few weeks ago in the Spectator, the student newspaper of Columbia University. I can’t shake it, though believe me I’ve tried. I won’t name the four undergraduate authors, because 30 years from now their children will be on Google, and because everyone in their 20s has the right to be an idiot.

Yet theirs is a significant and growing form of idiocy that deserves greater response.

The authors describe a student in a class discussion of Ovid’s epic poem “Metamorphoses.” The class read the myths of Persephone and Daphne, which, as parts of a narrative that stretches from the dawn of time to the Rome of Caesar, include depictions of violence, chaos, sexual assault and rape. The student, the authors reported, is herself “a survivor of sexual assault” and said she was “triggered.” She complained the professor focused “on the beauty of the language and the splendor of the imagery when lecturing on the text.” He did not apparently notice her feelings, or their urgency. As a result, “the student completely disengaged from the class discussion as a means of self-preservation. She did not feel safe in the class.”

Safe is the key word here. There’s the suggestion that a work may be a masterpiece but if it makes anyone feel bad, it’s out.

Later the student told the professor how she felt, and her concerns, she said, were ignored. The authors of the op-ed note that “Metamorphoses” is a fixture in the study of literature and humanities, “but like so many texts in the Western canon it contains triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities in the classroom.” The Western canon, they continue, is full of “histories and narratives of exclusion and oppression” that can be “difficult to read and discuss as a survivor, a person of color, or a student from a low-income background.”

That makes them feel unsafe: “Students need to feel safe in the classroom, and that requires a learning environment that recognizes the multiplicity of their identities.” The authors suggest changing the core curriculum but concede it may not be easy. Another student, they report, suggested in her class that maybe instead they could read “a Toni Morrison text.” A different student responded that “texts by authors of the African Diaspora are a staple in most high school English classes, and therefore they did not need to reread them.” That remark, the authors assert, was not only “insensitive” but “revealing of larger ideological divides.” The professor, they report, failed at this moment to “intervene.”

The op-ed authors call for “a space to hold a safe and open dialogue” about classroom experiences that “traumatize and silence students,” with the aim of creating environments that recognize “the multiplicity” of student “identities.”

Well, here are some questions and a few thoughts for all those who have been declaring at all the universities, and on social media, that their feelings have been hurt in the world and that the world had just better straighten up.

Why are you so fixated on the idea of personal safety, by which you apparently mean not having uncomfortable or unhappy thoughts and feelings? Is there any chance this preoccupation is unworthy of you? Please say yes.

There is no such thing as safety. That is asking too much of life. You can’t expect those around you to constantly accommodate your need for safety. That is asking too much of people.

Life gives you potentials for freedom, creativity, achievement, love, all sorts of beautiful things, but none of us are “safe.” And you are especially not safe in an atmosphere of true freedom. People will say and do things that are wrong, stupid, unkind, meant to injure. They’ll bring up subjects you find upsetting. It’s uncomfortable. But isn’t that the price we pay for freedom of speech?

You can ask for courtesy, sensitivity and dignity. You can show others those things, too, as a way of encouraging them. But if you constantly feel anxious and frightened by what you encounter in life, are we sure that means the world must reorder itself? Might it mean you need a lot of therapy?

Masterpieces, by their nature, pierce. They jar and unsettle. If something in a literary masterpiece upsets you, should the masterpiece really be banished? What will you be left with when all of them are gone?

What in your upbringing told you that safety is the highest of values? What told you it is a realistic expectation? Who taught you that you are entitled to it every day? Was your life full of . . . unchecked privilege? Discuss.

Do you think Shakespeare, Frieda Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, Langston Hughes and Steve Jobs woke up every morning thinking, “My focus today is on looking for slights and telling people they’re scaring me”? Or were their energies and commitments perhaps focused on other areas?

I notice lately that some members of your generation are being called, derisively, Snowflakes. Are you really a frail, special and delicate little thing that might melt when the heat is on?

Do you wish to be known as the first generation that comes with its own fainting couch? Did first- and second-wave feminists march to the barricades so their daughters and granddaughters could act like Victorians with the vapors?

Everyone in America gets triggered every day. Many of us experience the news as a daily microaggression. Who can we sue, silence or censor to feel better?

Finally, social justice warriors always portray themselves—and seem to experience themselves—as actively suffering victims who need protection. Is that perhaps an invalid self-image? Are you perhaps less needy than demanding? You seem to be demanding a safety no one else in the world gets. If you were so vulnerable, intimidated and weak, you wouldn’t really be able to attack and criticize your professors, administrators and fellow students so ably and successfully, would you?

Are you a bunch of frail and sensitive little bullies? Is it possible you’re not intimidated but intimidators?

Again, discuss.

By the way, I went back to the op-ed and read the online comments it engendered from the Columbia community. They were quite wonderful. One called, satirically, to ban all satire because it has too many “verbal triggers.” Another: “These women are like a baby watching a movie and thinking the monster is going to come out of the screen and get them.” Another: “These girls’ parents need a refund.”

The biggest slayer of pomposity and sanctimony in our time continues to be American wit.Popular on WSJ

Too protect me from these unhappy feelings and in the Columbia University solution....

Should ugly women be required to wear the veil???

Flag ButtonShareDouglas FinlaysonDouglas Finlayson 42 minutes ago

The metaphor is our subconscious engaging us in conversation. Ms Noonan lets hers spill out lugubriously. Those of us who enjoy dancing with Peggy's wolves and fairies can also reserve some sadness and pity for those snowflakes tormented by their anxiously noisome inner kids.

Reality becomes infinitely more beautiful when our inner children smile and engage instead of fleeing. When the monster crawls from neath the bed, throw it a treat and befriend it or just beat it off with a verbal club. Flag ButtonShareGregory SwensonGregory Swenson 38 minutes ago

Rove, who was Kelly’s first guest tonight, blasted Trump for squandering precious time “to spend today dedicating his hotel in Washington D.C., and complimenting Newt Gingrich on having a food fight with you last night. That was not a good use of today,” with just 13 days left to campaign, he sniffed.

Yes. It seems like quite an accomplishment, converting an old federal building into something modern and profitable, something Hillary and the government have no idea how to do. What did she get done on her day job while running for President, sell access and state secrets?

Maybe Fox and Friends, National Review and others are just as intolerant of dissent as those on the other side.

Yes. It seems like quite an accomplishment, converting an old federal building into something modern and profitable, something Hillary and the government have no idea how to do. What did she get done on her day job while running for President, sell access and state secrets?

Maybe Fox and Friends, National Review and others are just as intolerant of dissent as those on the other side.

Hillary has turned federal power and access into quite a lot of money.